AI Slops & AI Fails

An AI-generated image densely populated with hundreds of identical "Waldo" characters in their signature red and white striped shirts, hats, and glasses.
25 June 2025

Where is Waldo? When AI Creates, Not Conceals

This AI-generated image of "Where's Waldo?" is almost fascinating: so many Waldos that one might ask where he *isn't*. Apparently, the AI model interpreted "Where's Waldo?" as an instruction to *produce* Waldo, rather than to hide him within a larger scene. It seems to prioritize visual replication (yes, it has been trained on countless instances of Waldo's distinctive red-and-white form) from its training data to an almost absurd degree over the semantic intent. A prompt asking to conceal someone or something may fail due to a lack of understanding of negativity (similar to our cognition when we are asked to not think about, say, elephants, we will probably think about one). A prompt that implicitly asks to hide Waldo leads to an output where Waldo is everywhere.